Digital vs. Film Debate
All of our photography is shot digitally. Quality photography is about the skill of the photographer and not about the type of camera being used to capture the light. We have made a tremendous investment of time and money to become fluent with the latest digital cameras and software.
The technology of digital imagery is here to stay. Almost all of the photos you see in major magazines are shot with digital cameras. Large format 4×5 and 8×10 cameras are still used for landscape and advertising product photography however the image is captured with a digital back on those large cameras. Hasselblad Inc, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of medium format cameras has recently discontinued making film cameras. They are now only producing digital models of their cameras.
Unknown to most customers still shooting film, the larger national photo labs are scanning negatives to digital files before printing them. All of the new photo laboratory equipment is designed to print from digital files. Digital image files can be adjusted more effectively and therefore can consistently produce higher quality prints.
The public is familiar with digital photos shot by amateurs with inexpensive “pocket” cameras. These cameras don’t capture enough pixels to yield a high quality print leading to a false belief that digital is inferior to film. We use “top of the line” professional digital cameras that actually have better quality and color saturation than film. Additionally we test prototype digital cameras for Nikon USA. Our images have appeared in Nikon USA Inc. publications, advertising and information sheets.
Digital copies are exactly like the original however duplicates of film originals look worse with each copy. Digital images are also more historically archival because they do not deteriorate with time the way chemicals in a film negative does. We make storage copies of all our weddings however we suggest our customers make numerous copies for themselves. The photographs can’t be lost unless all of the CD’s and computers are destroyed.
Although there is a technical difference between the way film captures an image and digital capture, this is an insignificant issue. Only the prints can be compared and the visual differences in final prints are imperceptible to most viewers. All of our samples are digital images, judge for yourself.
